580 GEOPHYSICS: G. W. LITTLEHALES PROC. N. A.

S,
6 Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity, 24, June, 1919 (96).
7See Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity, 19, 1914 (57-72, 189-203);
also Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 4, 1914 (204-214).
8 See Publications of St. Louis Congress of Arts and Science, 4, 1904 (750-756).
9 Palmieri, L., "Osservaziones delle correnti telluriche," Rend. d'Acad. Napoli, 3,
1890 (225, 250); 4 (164, 228); 5 (216).

THE PROBLEMS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE SECTION OF

PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY OF THE
AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
By G. W. LITTLZHALES
The former and present function of the ocean in the history of the earth
and in its economy has forged bonds of kinship between oceanography
and many other branches of science. Ever since the ocean became the
world-encompassing highway of communication, its surface aspects,
embracing the movements of the waters in waves, tides, and currents,
have been subjects of observation. With the advance of the physical
sciences and a knowledge of the extent of the ocean came the realization
that so large an expanse of a substance having the highest known capacity
for heat must, to a large extent, govern the external temperature of the
earth and exercise an important influence as a factor in geophysics.
But centuries of voyaging did not extend marine observations beyond
the delineation of coasts and the service of navigation; and, in the middle
of the nineteenth century, the sea remained unfathomed, and the observa-
tions of the physicist, the chemist, the geologist, and the biologist did
not extend beyond the shallow coastal waters.
In setting forth the principal deep-sea expeditions, by nations and states,
through the names of the vessels engaged and the period of their service,
we shall serve ourselves the purpose of reflecting the progress of the at-
tempts that have been made to ascertain the physical characteristics of
that vast region of the earth's surface which is occupied by the deeper
waters of the ocean:
Austria Frangais (1903-5).
Pola (1891-1910). Germany
Belgium National (1889).
Belgica (1897-9). Valdivia (1898-9).
Denmark Gauss (1901-3).
Ingolf (1895-6). Planet (1906-14).
France Great Britain
Travailleur (18 3.Li ghtning (1868).
Talisman } (1803) Porcupine (1869-70).
Caudan (1895). Challenger (1873-6).
Vol. 6, I1920 GEOPHYSICS: G. W. LITTLEHALES 58I
Investigator (1887-1902). Sweden
Discovery (1901-4). Vega (1878-80).
Scotia (1902-4). Antarctic (1901-3).
Holland
William Barents (1878-84). United States
Siboga (1899-1900). Albatross (1883-1920).
Italy Blake (1876-97).
Washington (1881-2). Narragansett (1871-3).
Vettor Pisani (1882-5). Nero (1900).
Norway Thetis (1895).
Voringen (1876-8). Tuscarora (1873-6).
Fram (1893-6).
Gjoa (1903-5). Principality of Monaco
Michael Gars (1900-20) l'Hirondelle (1885-8).
Russia Princesse Alice I (1891-7).
Vitiaz (1886-9). Princesse Alice II (1895-1914).
These expeditions and many others of lesser import, operating for the
most part in seas remote from the countries in which they were fitted out,
have contributed much of the literature of oceanography in which we find
set forth the dynamic meteorology and climatology of the ocean, the
theories of the tides and waves and the observed facts concerning them,
the depths of the ocean, the temperature, the composition and circulation
of oceanic waters, the nature and distribution of marine organisms at the
surface and in the depths, and the origin and distribution of marine de-
posits over the floor of the ocean. But the ocean is so vast that the ac-
cumulation of facts of observation concerning it-extensive though it be
is but a sparse array in geographical distribution and constitutes but a
skeleton of knowledge in relation to the configuration of its basins, the
nature and distribution and thickness and stratification of the deposits
which cover the bottom, and the physical and chemical properties and
movements and mode of operation of its waters in producing their effects
in the economy of the earth.
It is not alone through expeditions upon the ocean that oceanography
has progressed; investigations in marine laboratories and institutions of
research and discoveries in cognate sciences have sometimes yielded more
advancement than distant and perilous voyages.
Advancement in the nature of the application of the philosophy of
method has enabled oceanography to profit in its later stages of develop-
ment. The system according to which progress is now being sought is
the study in detail of definite stations in the ocean occupied in concert,
and, as we hope it will be, by international cooperation, and periodically
revisited for the purpose of observing the variations of physical condition
whose import, when it comes to be understood, will enhance all those
wealth-producing sources which operate in seasonal cycles. Observa-
 582 GEOPHYSICS: G. W. LITTLEHALES PROC. N. A. S.
tions of temperature, salinity, gas content, and currents made as nearly
as possible at the same instant at series of points or stations and through-
out a network of lines distributed in the depths beneath a given area of
the ocean, and repeated every three months have afforded the means of
making synoptic charts which disclose the existence of bends or undula-
tions like the waves formed on the boundary surface between water layers
of different densities. It is the mathematical investigation of the varia-
tions with time of the changing network of lines of equal values of the
physical elements in their distribution in the depths that promises to in-
troduce oceanography into the ranks of the exact sciences by enabling
oceanographers, by mathematical laws, to predict effects from a few
observations strategically placed.
Conspicuous among the features of the resumption of American oceano-
graphical operations, after the interruption occasioned by the exigencies
of the late times, are the following: The International Ice Observation
and Ice Patrol Service in the North Atlantic Ocean, employing the vessels
of the United States Coast Guard under an arrangement by which the
cost is shared proportionately by the nations participating in the London
Conference of 1913, is engaged (coordinately with the primary duties of
ascertaining the locations and progressive movements of the limiting
lines of the regions in which icebergs and field ice exist in the vicinity of
the Grand Bank of Newfoundland and the dissemination of the informa-
tion so ascertained for the guidance and warning of navigators) in gather-
ing an important accumulation of oceanographical and meteorological
observations. Year by year, observations at recorded times, extending
from the surface to the bottom, are made in well determined geographical
positions throughout the patrolled region for determining the tempera-
ture and salinity of the, water by readings in series at definite depths, the
direction and rate of movement of the waters in the different depths, the
collection and preservation of plankton and samples of the water from
ascertained depths, and in recording the state of the weather and the sea
together with the barometric pressure, the humidity and the tempera-
ture of the air. These observations are published annually in the Bulle-
tins of the United States Coast Guard, Treasury Department.
Closely related to these investigations from the standpoint of the ad-
vancement of oceanography, is the accumulation of observations result-
ing from the annual returns of the schooner Grampus in the Gulf of Maine
and its vicinity, for the study of the correlation between physical ocean-
ography and biological oceanography in these waters, under the joint
auspices of the United States Bureau of Fisheries and the' Museum of
Comparative Zo6logy of Harvard University.
At La Jolla, near San Diego, California, there has grown up an insti-
tution by the name of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research,
whose operations, recently brought under the auspices of the University
VOL,. 6, I 920 GEOPHYSICS: H. S. WASHINGTON 583
of California, constitute an exemplar of intensive oceanographical investi-
gation. By systematically and repeatedly tabulating and mapping
standardized values of the temperature, salinity, density, currents, and
gas content of the water of the Pacific Ocean, serially observed at ascer-
tained intervals of depth from the surface to the bottom in fixed loca-
tions, the variations of these physical elements, with time and locality, in
their distribution in the depths, have been revealed to an important
extent within the confines of the oceanic tract in the region of the seat
of the Institution, stretching from San Diego to Point Concepcion and em-
bracing an area of more than 10,000 square miles.
It is the present purpose of the Section of Physical Oceanography to
foster the labors of these agencies and the similar ones which are con-
tributed by the Navy and the Coast Survey and to seek opportunities to
supplement them and link their operations, as far as may be, into co6rdi-
nation with the operations of the oceanographers of Japan, of Australia
and New Zealand, of the North Sea International Council of Exploration,
and the Mediterranean Sea International Council of Exploration. And,
through the formation of committees, to provide that consideration shall
be given to the problems of evaporation and heat transference and the
interrelations between oceanography and meteorology, to the problems of
dynamic oceanography including the variations of mean sea-level and the
tides and their manifestations in the depths as well as the surface, to the
investigation of the chemical and physical properties of the waters includ-
ing the penetration of light, to the investigation of the origin and distri-
bution of bottom deposits, to the problem of ascertaining the conforma-
tion and topography of the basins, and to the ways and means of
advancement in the domain of physical oceanography.

THE PROBLEMS OF VOLCANOLOGY

By HENRY S. WASHINGTON
INTRODUCTION
Of the various sciences represented in the American Geophysical Union
that of volcanology is perhaps the most complex and has probably most
points of contact with the other geophysical sciences. This complexity
and variety in the problems presented by the study of volcanoes arises, in
part, from the fact that they are, as has been well said, "natural labora-
tories." Also the distribution and many of the activities of volcanoes
are closely connected with some of the physical, as well as the chemical
forces that are involved in the formation and in the present condition of
the earth.
In presenting some of the main problems of volcanology, we may be-
gin with those that are essentially and more purely volcanological, and